Sole-fitting machine



A. E. JOHNSON, SOLE FITTING MACHINE. I APPLICATION mip JU-LY24, 1920. 1,426,391, Patented Aug. 22, 1922.

2 SHEETS SHEET l.

A. E. JOHNSON.

SOLE FITTING MACHINE. nPPucA'HoN FILED JULY24, I920. 1,426,391. PatentedAug. 22, 1922" 2 SHEETSS'HEET 2.

ALBERT E. JOHNSON, or BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS, AssIeNo'n T0 mziznnsnm STATES PATENT ow-i e... 1-

MACHINERY CORPORATION, on PATERSON, NEW JERSEY," A CORPORATION or NEW JERSEY.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALBERT E. JOHNSON,

- a citizen of the United States, residing at Beverly, in the county of Essex and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Sole-Fitting Machines; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to sole fitting machines and more particularly to such ma chines for preparing the toes of soles for the operation of turning the channel flap.

The present invention is designed espe cially for the purpose of operating upon the channel flap material. of a turn sole in'such a way as to render the channel flap capable of being readily turned up at the toe. As is well known to those skilled in the art, it is not ordinarily necessary to turn the channel flap of a turn sole in order to prepare the sole for the turn sewing operation. In the case of turn soles, which are later to be reenforced, as set forth in Letters Patent of the United States No. 1,200,114, granted March 4, 1916, to the present applicant, it is desirable to turn back the channel flap to a position where the reenforcment can be readily secured to the flesh face of the sole at the channel and to the inner face of the flap. It is also well known that consider able difiiculty is encountered in turningup the channel flaps of Economy welt insoles,

particularly for peaked toe shoes, on account of the fact that around the toe portion of the sole the curve of the free edge of the channel flap is shorter than the curve of the base or root of the channel. The channel in such manner that the channel flap may.

more easily be turned up at the toe of the sole.

SOLE-FITTING MACI-IIIUEL invention resides in the features of construct1on and combinations of parts hereinafter I Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Aug22 Application filed July 24, 1920. Serial No. 398,632. l i

described and particularly pointed outin a the appended claims, the advantages of which will be apparent to those'skilled in,

i m so. The invention will be best understood the art; a i

from a description of the preferred embodiment thereofillustrated in the accompanying drawings in which the invention has been shown, for purposes of description,

as applied to a machine of the type disclosed in Letters Patent of the UnitedStates, No. 1,087,57 8, granted February 17, 1914, to John B. Hadaway for a machinefor snipping the toes of insoles;

In the drawings, Figure 1 is-a'view in frontelevation of so much of the machine shown in said patent to Hadaway as is nec essary together with the improvements of the present invention shown applied thereto; Fig. 2 is a sectional view taken on the line 22 of Fig. 1; Fig. 3 is a view, partially in side elevation and partially in section, of the machine shown in Fig. 1; Fig, 4 1s a plan vlew of the toe portion of a turn sole illustrating the manner in which the channel flap is operated upon by the present o machine; and Fig; 5 is a detail sectional vlew taken substantially on the line 5 5 of;

Fig. 2. e v

In the embodiment of the invention illustrated in the drawings, the framefi of the head, the reciprocating plunger 8 carrying the flap slashing knife 10, driven by the wrist pin 12 upon the driving shaft 14, and the work-supporting table 16 carried on the yielding plunger 18, guided in the lower portion of the frame 6, all may be, andpref- Y e'rably are, of the same design as like parts in the patent to Hadaway hereinbefo're referred to. Inasmuch as the present machine is especially adapted to operate upon turn soles in which, in addition to thechannel flap there is a shoulder merely,'and therefore no marginal lip, such as there isin thecase of welt'insoles, the present machine-is not provided with a lip knife, as in the machine-of said patent. The operating mechanism for the driving shaft 14 may be of any conven- V ient design, but is preferably constructed like that illustrated in said patent wherein the revolutions of the shaft are controlled by a one revolution clutch of the I-Iorton' type operated bya foot treadle, all as usual and well known.

The flap knife 10 is mounted upon a carrier 20 which corresponds to the presser foot bar employed in the machine of the Hadaway patent. The carrier QO'is adjustably secured to the plunger 8 in the same manner as said presser foot bar, and a similar ear 22 projects forwardly from the can. rier towhich the knife 10 is adjustably secured as set forth in said patent. In the present constructioninstead of the pressure gages of the Hadaway machine, a pair of strippers 24 are provided; the strippers being mountedupon the carrier 20 and being similar in construction and mode of Operation, to the strippers illustrated and described in Letters Patent of the United States No. 1,375,676, Cosgrove, April 26, 1921.

In order to prepare the stiff channel flap of a turn sole so that it may be turned back to a position where a sheet or strip of reenforcingmaterial can be readily applied, the present invention contemplates the cutting or slashing of the channel flap, not only at the point of the toe but also at two additional points, one on each side of the centralcut. In order to accomplish this result two additional flap knives 26 are provided which are arranged on opposite sides of the central knife-1O and are actuated concurrently with the operation of the knife 10 to produce the required additional cuts. In thepresent construction, in order to permit the employment of these additional flap knives 26', the strippers 2-1 are arranged at a. greater distance in front of theaxis of the plunger 8- than in the machine offithe Gosgrove patent, the present strippers being mounted in a pair of projections 28-at thefront side of the carrier 20, one of said projections comprising a downward extensionof the car 22.

After being placed upon the work-supporting table 16, the sole is positioned relatively to the central knife 10 by means of cooperating gages which are similar to those employed for the. same purpose in the above named patent to Cosgrove.

extendsthrough a: slot 36 in the. gage, the

slot being arranged to permit adjustment of These gages comprise a fixed toe gage 30 for en-.

the gage toward and from the knife 10, in accordance with the size and style of the sole being operated upon. The movable side gages comprise suitably shaped sole engaging ends (Fig. 4-) on arms 88 which extend forwardly and outwardly from said ends across the top of the work-supporting table. The arms 38 are clamped at their outer ends by rigid tongueand-groove connections, one to each of the onterends of two levers 10, the latter extending inwardly beneath the table and being fulcrumed on separate pivots 42 formed by screws threaded into the under side of the table. Thelevers so are I connected by intermeshing gear segments a l on hubs at their inner ends, and a spring 46 is connected between one segment and the table-so as tonormally maintain the 32 in a position of approach. A'lug 48 on one of the segments 40 engages an adjustable stop 50 carried below the table 16 to limit the approach of the gages. With the above described arrangement of the gages 82, which is substantially the same as that shown and described in the aforesaid Cosgrove patent, the gages are forced apart by the sole when it is placed upon the work-supporting table and introduced between them and into contact with the gage 30 and then they are held yieldingly against the edges of'the sole whatever its toe contour may be.

In the present construction, the knives 26, which are arranged on opposite sides of the central knife 1.0, are adapted to cut or slash 100 the channel flap material. in the same manner as the central knife. In order to automatically adapt the machine to operate upon soles of different sizes and styles without the necessity of specially adjusting the 105 knives 26, these knives are so mounted that their operative positions are determined'by the positions of the side gages when the sole is in position to be operated upon. To

this end the knives 26 are severally carried I by a pair of irregularly shaped knife-sup porting arms 54:, the rear ends of which are mounted upon a common vertical pivot stud 56 5) that is supported by the plunger 8, while the forward extremities of the arms 5% are-provided with slots 58 to receive the upper ends of a pair of vertical. posts 60, one of which rises from-the rear or soleengaging end of each arm 38. By means of the post-andslot connection between the arms 38 and the knife-supporting arms 54;, the latter are oscillated about the pivot stud 56 as the gagearms are adjusted by the sole, so that the position of the knives 26 will be varied in accordance with the width of the toe portion of the sole.

The shape and. knives 26 is best Each knife blade mode of mounting of the shown in Figs. 2 and 5. 26 is formed on the head 62 of a Cylindrical stud -64-as shown in Fig.

5. Each stud 64: is received in a vertical spective gage arm 88 and a washer 84 which a-" hinge construction, to enable said arms' to occupy the same horizontal planes. The upperportion of the pivot stud 56 is screwthreaded into a plug 68 which extends into a socket 70 in the lower extremity of the plunger 8, and is securely held therein by means of a clamping bolt 72. The knifesupporting arms 54: are retained upon the pivot stud 56 by means of ahead 74 on said stud. A shouldered intermediate portion 7 6 on thepivot stud 56 provides a bearing for the-arms 5.4, and permits the stud to be tightly screwed into the plug :68 without interfering with'the free oscillation of the arms 54. The length ofv the knife-supporting arms 54 and the location ofthe pivot stud 56 upon the plunger are such that the knives will bear the same transverse angular relation to the soles operatedupon irrespective ofvariations in the size orstyle' of the soles. H

To receive the upward thrusts of theknife-supporting arms 54 as the knives 26 I are forced into the sole by the downward move ment of the plunger 8; a horizontal bearing face 78 is formedon the underside of a flange 80 which projects forwardly from the plug 68, the bearing face 7 8 being flush with thel'ower end face of the plug,

To avoid any tendency of theslotted ends of the knife-supporting arms 54: to-bind or clamp againstthe posts 60, a light-spring 82 is coiled around each post between the reengages the lower face of the arm 54 through which the post extends, as shown'in Fig. 5'. The springs 82 are compressed'by the de pression of the knife-supporting arms 54:, and upon the upward movement of the latter, they exert a lifting force upon the outer ends of said arms which counteractsthe effect of any frictional resistance to said upward movement due to rubbing of the-posts against the side walls of the slots 58.

' The operation of the knives in the present machine results in the production-of three slashes, such as are shown in Fig. l, the slash made by the central'knife 10 being indicated at 86, and the slashes made by the adjustable knives 26 being indicated at88. By means of the slashes 86 and 88, the portion of the channel'fiapjat the point of the toe is divided into] a pair of tongues- 90 which may readily be turned backto receive the reinforcing material against the inner face of the channel flap.

To adapt the present machinev to operate upon soles of a particular size or style, the

stationary toe 80 is set, tocause the" knives to be soposltioned that the slashes, made thereby will be located at thefpr'operv '75v 7 distance from, the edge of the sole to cut through the channel fiapmateriaL-g As in the machine of the patent to Cosgrove hereinbefore referred to,'"the side gages 38 'oper-" ate to position the toe portion ofthe solerelatively to the central knife '10 so-that its slash 86 will be located centrally of the toe.

By means of the herein described connec-- tions between "the arms which carry the knives 26'and the "gage arms 88,- the knives 26 will be causcdto automatically adjust themselves to the particular sole to be operted upon by moving toward or from'the central knife 10 according'to the width of the toe portion of the sole. In this way the knives 26 will be correctly positioned to make the slashes 86 and 88 throughthe channel flap material whatever; contour thetoe I may have.

. It is pointed out "that the present machine will operate equallywell upon soles either before or after the channel flap hass'been formed, asitis obvious that the resultant I condition of the sole will be the same in whichever order the channeling and'channel flap slashing operations are performed, The

phrases in the specification and in theap pended claims describing the operations of the knives as" slashing the channel flap ma. terial are to be understood as words of descriptionof the location of the" slashes in the sole and not as words of limitation to restrict the operation of the machineto mak.

ing the slashes in a sole after itnhas been'.

channeled. Y v

- While is preferred to employ the specific construction and-'arrangement of parts shown and described, it will beunderstood that this construction and arrangemen-t'is' not'essential exceptso faras specified in the claims and may be changed or modified without departing from the spirit and true v scope of the invention.

l/Vhat is claimed as new,-1s:

LA sole fitting machine having, in com-.,'

bination, a work-supporting table, a plurality of slashing knives s-paced'apart above the table for making a plurality of incisions in the unattached sole, wholly automatic means for varying the spacing of saidknives in accordance with the size or style ofthe sole to'be operated upon, and means'for' reciprocating said knives toward and from the table. r

2. A sole fitting machine having, in"com' bination, a work-supporting table a plurality of slashing knives spaced apart above the'table for making a plurality of lnoislons 1n the sole, gaging means for locating the sole upon said table in position to be operated upon comprising a pair of side gages am'anged to be spread apart as a sole is introduced between them, means controlled by said gages for adjusting the spacing of the knives to accord with the size or style of the sole, and means for reciprocating said knives toward and from the table.

3. A sole fitting machine having, in combination, a work-suppcrting table, aseries of reciprocatory sole slashing knives spaced apart above the table adapted to make a series of incisions in the sole, movable devices for locating the sole on the table in position to'receive the slashes in themargin of the sole at the toe thereof, and means controlled by the movement ofsaid devices for varying the relation of said knives to each other to accord withthe size or style of the sole to be slashed.

i. A; sole fitting machine having, in com bination, aplurality of knives spaced apart to cut a series of transverse slashes in the channel flap material the toe of a sole, and means for adjusting the spacing of the knives in accordance with the size or style of the sole to be operated upon.

A sole fitting machine having, in coinbination, a series of knives for slashing the channel flap material atthe toe of a sole comprising a knife arranged to operate centrally of'the toe and pair of knives arranged one on each side of the central knife, and means for adjusting each knife of said pair toward and from the central knife in accordance with the size or style of the sole to be operated upon.

6. A sole fittingmachine having, in combination, a. series of knives for slashing the channel flap material at the toe of a sole comprising a knife arranged to operate centrally of the toe and a pair of knives arranged one on each side of the central knife, a pair of gages arranged'to be spread apart by the sole as it is introduced into the machine, and connections between said gages and said pair of mives for adjusting the position of the latter in accordance with the position of the gages 7. A sole fitting machine having, in combination, a work-supporting table, a plunger reciprocableabove the table, a knife carried by the plunger for slashing the channel flap material transversely centrally of the toe of the sole, a pair of knives adjustably mounted one at each side of the central knife for similarly slashing the channel flap. material at the sides of the toe, and means for automatically adjusting said pair of knives toward and from each other in accordance with the size or style of the sole to be operated upon.

8. A sole'fitting machine having, in com bination, a work-supporting table,-a plunger reciprocable above the table, a knife carried by the plunger for slashing the channel flap material transversely cent-rally of the toe of the sole, a pair of knives arranged oneat each side of the central knife for similarly' slashing the channel flap material at the sides of the toe, said pair of knives being mountedwith provision for swinging adjustment about a common pivotal connection with the plunger so located that as theknives are adjusted to operate upon soles of different sizes or styles substantially the same transverse relation of the knives to the'channel flap material willbe maintained. 1

9. A sole fitting machine having, in combination a work-supporting table, a pair of side gages arranged to be spread apart as" the sole is thrust between them, a reciprocable plunger above saidtable, a knife carried by the plunger for slashing the channel flap material of a sole centrally of the toe, and a pair of knives adjustably mounted on the plunger ,for slashingthe channel flap material on opposite sidesof the cutmade by the central knife.

10. A sole fitting machine having, in com bination, a work-supporting table, a pair of side gages arranged tobe spread apart as the sole is thrust between them, a. re-

ciprocable plunger abovesaid table, a knife carried by the plunger for 'slashmgv the channel flap material of a sole-transversely centrall T of the toe and a Jair of knives for similarly slashing the channel flap material on opposite sides of the out made by the central knife, said knives being adapted for adjustment toward and from each other to maintain substantially the same angular relation of the slashes made by the knives to the edge of the sole whatever its size or style may be.

11. A sole fitting'm'aehine having, incombination, a work-supporting table, a'pair of side gages arranged to be spread apart; as the sole'is thrust between them, a reciprocable. plunger above said table, a pair of arms mounted on said plunger for adjustment toward and from each other in a plane parallel to the supporting surface of the worktable, pair of knives carried by'said arms for transversely slashing the channel flap material on opposite sides of the toe of the sole, and connections betweensaid arms and the side gages whereby said pair of knives may be adjusted in'unison with said gages.

152. A sole fitting machine having, in combination, a work-supporting table, a pair of side arranged tobe spread apart as the sole is thrust between them, a reeiprocable plunger above said table, a pair of slotted arms severally pivoted atone endon said plunger for horizontal swinging adthrongh the slots in said arms for causingv a justment toward and from each other, a said pair of knives to be adjusted in unison pair of knives carried at the free ends of ith said side gages, and springs acting 10" said arms for slashing the channel flap mar upon theouter ends of said arms for facili-k terial at each side of the toe of the sole, tating the free upward movement of the v a. pair of posts severally projecting uplatter when the plunger rises.

wardly frolnthe side gages and extending ALBERT E, JOHNSON. 

